The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Is Your System Ready? Find Out

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s May 18th release is tantalizingly close. On PC, the experience will be enhanced with higher-resolution textures, higher-quality effects, higher levels of detail, uncapped framerates, and many other enhancements. And like the latest and greatest PC games, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is further enhanced with NVIDIA technologies and GameWorks effects that increase immersion and image quality throughout the 100-hour action RPG.

Working hand-in-hand with developer CD Projekt RED, we’ve transformed the protagonist’s hair and beard, the mane of his trusty steed (and the manes of other horses), and the fur of over three dozen monsters into dynamic, highly detailed, fully formed hair and fur that reacts realistically to movement, external forces, dynamic lighting, and shadows. Using a technology called NVIDIA HairWorks, the addition of this DirectX 11 tessellated hair to the majority of Geralt's animal and supernatural assailants creates immersive scenes and encounters for the duration of the anticipated title.

Rendering tens of thousands of hairs simultaneously requires significant computational power, a task best suited to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 900 Series GPUs, which crunch tessellation tasks up to three times faster than previous-generation graphics cards. This tessellation prowess also proves useful out on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s dangerous seas, whose waves and ripples are rendered solely through tessellation.

The other major addition to the PC edition is the inclusion of NVIDIA HBAO+, a high-quality Ambient Occlusion (AO) technique that greatly improves the quality of shadowing around objects and characters game-wide. Powered by DirectX 11 and NVIDIA secret sauce, HBAO+ is the AO solution of choice for developers seeking ultimate image quality.

Though not a selectable or configurable setting, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also features NVIDIA PhysX, which adds realistic cloth and destruction effects throughout the game. Powered by the CPU and available on all platforms, these effects make the world feel more alive and dynamic, with cloth blowing the in the wind and objects exploding realistically. On PC, these effects run at a higher detail level and with additional particles that further increase their fidelity and realism.

Gamers seeking to maximize their graphical fidelity should invest spare performance to crank up The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s rendering resolution with NVIDIA Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR). An easy to use GeForce Experience and NVIDIA Control Panel feature, Dynamic Super Resolution delivers 4K-quality graphics to any monitor with just a few clicks. It is by far the most effective way to massively increase graphical fidelity once other settings are maxed out, and it’s how enthusiasts produce jaw-dropping screenshots.

With everything maxed out and 4K DSR enabled, it’s more than likely that you’ll need a powerful GeForce GTX 900 Series GPU to achieve playable, smooth framerates. If you ain’t got one, you should definitely check out our ‘Two Times The Adventure’ NVIDIA GeForce GTX Bundle, which nets you a GeForce GTX 900 Series GPU, notebook, or PC, and a free copy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (GeForce GTX 980 and GeForce GTX 970 buyers also get a free copy of Batman: Arkham Knight). You can learn more here, but act fast, the bundle’s flying off the shelves and stock isn’t unlimited.

Previously unavoidable, now defeated, screen tearing and juddering are a thing of the past on NVIDIA G-SYNC variable refresh rate monitors, which make your experience perceptively smoother, and undeniably better. And because G-SYNC monitors run at up to 144Hz, input lag and response times are as low as is technologically possible, ensuring you’re only ever killed by your reflexes, and not your monitor’s noticeable input delay.

To support and drive all of these features at peak performance on our vast range of graphics cards, we’ll be releasing a Game Ready GeForce GTX The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt driver shortly before the eagerly-anticipated title goes live next Tuesday. Optimizing performance, the Game Ready drivers ensure the best possible experience, and come loaded with a SLI profile for peerless performance in multi-GPU systems.

For all the details and an immediate download you’ll want to stay tuned to GeForce.com, or you can let GeForce Experience automatically download them for you when our handy-dandy application checks for updates.

GeForce Experience also enables you to configure The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s many game settings with a single click, instantly giving you Optimal Playable Settings for your specific system configuration. This one-click feature activates DSR, too, if your system and settings are compatible, giving you the best possible experience.

In addition to driver updates and Optimal Playable Settings, GeForce Experience’s other standout feature enables you to quickly and easily record gameplay from just about every game with a minuscule performance impact. Called ShadowPlay, our gameplay recorder uses hardware on GeForce GTX 600, 700, 800, and 900 GPUs to capture footage, instead of using your CPU, preventing significant slowdowns. And with some other innovative technology, it acts like a DVR, giving you the option of saving up to 20 minutes of past footage, ensuring you never miss out on the opportunity to save and share an awesome moment. Stay tuned to our #ShareEveryWin Shadowplay contest next month as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be our featured title.

Last but by no means least, GeForce Experience pairs with SHIELD devices to activate GameStream, a tool that enables you to play your PC games remotely on a SHIELD device, or on a TV. This can be done at home on WiFi, or out on the road with fast WiFi or 4G LTE, enabling you to continue the hunt from anywhere in the world with speedy Internet.

In summary, the PC version of Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is going to deliver an immersive highly-detailed experience that’ll entertain you for many, many hours. To make this experience as good as it can possible be, ensure you are playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt the way it’s meant to be played with GeForce GTX. No other platform or system configuration can compete, making GeForce the only game in town for peak Witcher 3: Wild Hunt performance and image quality.

If you’re wondering if you are ready for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, check out the system requirements and GPU analyzer, and take a look at our recommendations below for playing the action RPG at various detail levels and resolutions. For personalized settings for your specific system, be sure to Optimize with GeForce Experience when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt launches on Monday.

For the complete lowdown on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt you’ll have to stay tuned to GeForce.com for our Graphics, Performance & Tweaking Guide. In the meantime, let us know in the comments which NVIDIA technologies you’ll be utilizing to enhance your The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt PC experience.